Whole life health insurance

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do Grau de mestre em Matemática e Aplicações

A crop-land allocation model: A case study in La Rioja, Spain

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Supplementary private health insurance: The characteristics of subscribers

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Economics from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Customer Lifetime Value: a framework for application in the insurance industry - Building a Business Process to Generate and Maintain an Automatic Estimation Agent

Research Project submited as partial fulfilment for the Master Degree in Statistics and Information Management

SIG, Amazônia e polícia federal: geointeligência no combate ao desmatamento ilegal na Amazônia

Dissertação apresentada como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Ciência e Sistemas de Informação Geográfica

Differential exploitation of cashew - a low conflict crop - by sympatric humans and chimpanzees

Modification of natural areas by human activities mostly has a negative impact on wildlife by increasing the geographical and ecological overlap between people and animals. This can result in escalating levels of competition and conflict between humans and wildlife, for example over crops. However, data on specific crops and crop parts that are unattractive to wildlife yet important for human livelihoods are surprisingly scarce, especially considering their potential application to reducing crop damage by wildlife. Here we examine the co-utilization of a nationally important and spatially abundant cash crop, cashew Anacardium occidentalis, by people and chimpanzees Pan troglodytes verus inhabiting a forested–agricultural matrix in Cantanhez National Park in Guinea-Bissau. In this Park people predominantly harvest the marketable cashew nut and discard the unprofitable fruit whereas chimpanzees only consume the fruit. Local farmers generally perceive a benefit of raiding by chimpanzees as they reportedly pile the nuts, making harvesting easier. By ensuring that conflict levels over crops, especially those with high economic importance, remain low, the costs of living in proximity to wildlife can potentially be reduced. Despite high levels of deforestation associated with cashew farming, these findings point to the importance of cashew as a low-conflict crop in this area.

Do Migrants Send Remittances as a Way of Self-Insurance?

How do risk preferences affect migrant remittance behaviour? Examination of this relationship has only begun to be explored. Using a tailored representative survey of 1500 immigrants in the Greater Dublin Area, Ireland, we find a positive and significant relationship between risk aversion and migrant remittances. Risk-averse individuals are more likely to send remittances home and are, on average, likely to remit a higher amount, after controlling for a broad range of individual and group characteristics. The evidence we obtain is consistent with a “purchase of self-insurance” motive to remit in that we also find support for more remittances being sent by risk-averse immigrants who face higher wage risks and to individuals with more financial resources.

The role of deposit insurance and bank’s asset size in the 2008 financial crisis

In this paper we analyze the role of deposit insurance in providing the market with liquidity in times of financial turmoil. To do so, we look at the variation in insured and uninsured deposits between 2005Q3 and 2011Q3, controlling for liquidity, solvency and capital adequacy indicators, and find evidence that deposit insurance does provide some confidence in keeping funds in banks in times of turmoil. Additionally we follow an event study methodology to assess the impact of deposit insurance oriented policies on bank holding companies stock market returns, and find a TBTF effect.

Statistics as a basis for discrimination in the insurance business

The European Court of Justice has held that as from 21 December 2012 insurers may no longer charge men and women differently on the basis of scientific evidence that is statistically linked to their sex, effectively prohibiting the use of sex as a factor in the calculation of premiums and benefits for the purposes of insurance and related financial services throughout the European Union. This ruling marks a sharp turn away from the traditional view that insurers should be allowed to apply just about any risk assessment criterion, so long as it is sustained by the findings of actuarial science. The naïveté behind the assumption that insurers’ recourse to statistical data and probabilistic analysis, given their scientific nature, would suffice to keep them out of harm’s way was exposed. In this article I look at the flaws of this assumption and question whether this judicial decision, whilst constituting a most welcome landmark in the pursuit of equality between men and women, has nonetheless gone too far by saying too little on the million dollar question of what separates admissible criteria of differentiation from inadmissible forms of discrimination.

Insurance segmentation as unfair discrimination: what to expect next in the wake of Test-Achats

Proceedings of the 16th Annual Conference organized by the Insurance Law Association of Serbia and German Foundation for International Legal Co-Operation (IRZ), entitled "Insurance law, governance and transparency: basics of the legal certainty" Palic Serbia, 17-19 April 2015.

Managing marginal capital requirements in solvency II: Analysis of a real insurance portfolio

This thesis provides a complete analysis of the Standard Capital Requirements given by Solvency II for a real insurance portfolio. We analyze the investment portfolio of BPI Vida e Pensões, an insurance company affiliated with a Portuguese bank BPI, both at security, sub-portfolio and asset class levels. By using the Standard Formula from EIOPA, Total SCR amounts to 239M€. This value is mostly explained by Market and Default Risk whereas the former is driven by Spread and Concentration Risks. Following the methodology of Leblanc (2011), we examine the Marginal Contribution of an asset to the SCR which allows for the evaluation of the risks of each security given its characteristics and interactions in the portfolio. The top contributors to the SCR are Corporate Bonds and Term Deposits. By exploring further the composition of the portfolio, our results show that slight changes in allocation of Term and Cash Deposits have severe impacts on the total Concentration and Default Risks, respectively. Also, diversification effects are very relevant by representing savings of 122M€. Finally, Solvency II represents an opportunity for the portfolio optimization. By constructing efficient frontiers, we find that as the target expected return increases, a shift from Term Deposits/ Commercial Papers to Eurozone/Peripheral and finally Equities occurs.

Supplementary private health insurance: The characteristics of subscribers

Despite the fact that public medical care has being heavily subsidized through a statutory national health system there has been a growing number of people who opt to enroll in extra private coverage. Using a two part model to infer the insurance decision and subsequent amount of insurance chosen we found out that people’s decision over private health coverage is not related with their health. The pattern of consumption of medical care that is not available in the public sector and a good socio economic background were found significant modeling the demand for private health insurance.

Analysis of classification algorithms for crop detection using LANDSAT 8 images

Remote sensing - the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object - is applied in a multitude of different areas, ranging from agriculture, forestry, cartography, hydrology, geology, meteorology, aerial traffic control, among many others. Regarding agriculture, an example of application of this information is regarding crop detection, to monitor existing crops easily and help in the region’s strategic planning. In any of these areas, there is always an ongoing search for better methods that allow us to obtain better results. For over forty years, the Landsat program has utilized satellites to collect spectral information from Earth’s surface, creating a historical archive unmatched in quality, detail, coverage, and length. The most recent one was launched on February 11, 2013, having a number of improvements regarding its predecessors. This project aims to compare classification methods in Portugal’s Ribatejo region, specifically regarding crop detection. The state of the art algorithms will be used in this region and their performance will be analyzed.

What Fidelidade group should do to convey its human centric brand identity values to millennial insurance consumers

Companies are concerned in attracting and retaining Millennial consumers, especially if their relation with this target audience is weak. This happens in the insurance industry in Portugal and in Fidelidade group specifically. The aim of this study is to recommend a strategy for the insurance group to improve its relationship with these consumers, by conveying its human centric values. In order to address this goal, we developed a qualitative research. The main insight is that Millennials may perceive those values in the industry but do not associate them with insurance brands.